€3.75 per hour earned by Italian University Teachers?

According to
a survey of the union of temporary workers and trade unions in Bologna, Italian
University teachers earn as little as €3.75 per hour. In the country which was
one of the cradles of western culture, courses that are quintessential to the academic
curriculum are taught by 26,000 underpaid temporary professors. The survey
shows teachers at university earn between €4.28 and €17.14 per hour for a
60-hour course, or between €3.75 and €15 per hour, before tax, for a
one-semester module. 85% of temporary professors in Italy teach classes
assessed as compulsory for students’ curriculum, while Universities state that
these external lecturers are hired only for minor disciplines or lab work.

As a
consequence, these highly skilled, well-educated professionals are often forced
to take on other jobs, in order to survive.

According to
the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, male professors account
for 60% of the staff on “zero-hours contracts”. Female staff in Italian
universities make up 35% of the total workforce, reflecting Italy’s gender gap
in the labour market, where women tend to occupy less remunerative and
prestigious positions. This is showed by the fact that at lower levels of
education, such as primary, secondary education and high-school, women account
for 83% of the teaching labour force.

Flc-Cgil
unions and the network of temporary workers behind the study estimate that
Universities’ short-term contractors end up working “for free” 78% of their
total time. Moreover, basic rights cannot be taken for granted: temporary
teachers cannot benefit from maternity or paternity leave, sick leave or
holidays.

A 2011 decree
sets the salary for the temporary professors between €25 and €100 per hour
before tax, but each university applies different tariffs within this range
depending on the resources available.

Previous
teaching experience gives extra points when applying for a full-time role
within universities via open competitions. For this reason, young and older
professionals continue to teach in the hope of permanently accessing the
Academic ranks.

The problem
concerns university and education as a whole, as teachers’ salaries are among
the lowest in Europe but people don’t protest fearing repercussions on their
career.

France has the
same issue with the so-called Chargé d'enseignement vacataires, who can earn as
little as €7.13.

The Spanish
equivalent of the “professori a contratto” are associated professors earning
about €5 per hour.

Things are
not much better in the UK where, as it was reported by the Guardian, teaching
is now dominated by zero-hour contracts, temp agencies and other forms of
temporary work. A 44-year-old politics lecturer working at three different
institutions at once could only earn just over £6,000 (€6,848) a year, relying
on benefits to top up his poverty pay.